


Every Minute (slips through the hour glass)

by LittleMissAgrafina



Series: Discord Challenges [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: And it's hurting, Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Canon Compliant, Challenge Response, Discord Challenge, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, Irondad, Mentioned May Parker (Spider-Man), Mentioned Morgan Stark - Freeform, Parent Tony Stark, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Way too much use of the word "sand", and also bad at tagging, im sorry, mentioned Pepper Potts - Freeform, so much hurt, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29006985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissAgrafina/pseuds/LittleMissAgrafina
Summary: When a person hears the word sand, they tend to think of beaches and of deserts. Of waves crashing against golden shores and of towering dunes that were carved and painted by swirling winds.Those thoughts were often accompanied by images of the sun shining hot and bright in the blue of the sky. Of beach towels, sunblock, and ice cream.Tony Stark did not think of these things when faced with sand. He thought only of turmoil. Of anger and pain and battle. He thought of loss and of the ache that the grief had filled his heart with.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Discord Challenges [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2127978
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Every Minute (slips through the hour glass)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TeamMightyPen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamMightyPen/gifts).



> Hi guys! I apologise for this one lol. The angst is strong.  
> I genuinely have no idea when this is supposed to be set I just know that it's after endgame.  
> I hope you like it (again, im so sorry for this lol)  
> (Also, shout out to T for helping me with the title and summary. Have this gift of hurt as a thank you)

  
  


When a person hears the word  _ sand _ , they tend to think of beaches and of deserts. Of waves crashing against golden shores and of towering dunes that were carved and painted by swirling winds. 

  
  


Those thoughts were often accompanied by images of the sun shining hot and bright in the blue of the sky. Of beach towels, sunblock, and ice cream. 

  
  


The shifting dune sands would occasionally hold the footprints of various buck and the winding curves left in the wake of a snake's travel. Or the trail of the nomads that traveled with their home on the backs of their camels as they scoured the ever changing but familiar landscape for water and food.

  
  


Tony Stark did not think of these things when faced with sand. No, he thought only of turmoil. Of anger and pain and battle. He thought of loss and of the ache that the grief had filled his heart with.

  
  


He did not think of happy days filled with the scent of sea and surf. He failed to see the freedom of the nomads and the beauty of the ever changing dunes that they roamed.

  
  


Tony thought instead of the child that he had lost. Of the young boy, the young  _ man _ , that still had so much to give and so much to do.

  
  


He thought of days spent in the lab and of nights spent in the living room as they watched movie after movie.

  
  


The lab was now too empty and quiet and the couch too cold and lonely.

  
  


He thought of the jokes and the banter that would always flow so easily between them. 

  
  


Now he couldn't even bring himself to speak.

  
  


He thought of the time that Pepper had lovingly called them nerds because neither of them could agree on whether Han or Luke was the best character. 

  
  


Their memories and the twinkling stars of their universe were now tainted in clouds of dust and ash.

  
  


He thought of May and of their shared love of the familiar and soothing feeling of talking in a language they had both grown up on. Conversations in Italian were almost always guaranteed between the two of them.

  
  


His heritage only made his heart ache.

  
  


He thought of his family and of the love that he had found in them… and how it had been ripped from him in an instant.

  
  
  


\---

  
  
  


Tony Stark could not think of sand without seeing the burnt red and orange of a decrepit planet or the closed in walls of a cave in Afghanistan.

  
  


He couldn't think of sand without the nauseating memory of Peter's ashes on his hands as they fell and drifted to rest with the alien sands at his feet. Without the memory of Yinsen laying so silent and still.

  
  


He couldn't think of sand so he moved to a home shrouded in the greens of a forest and the glittering blue of a lake.

  
  


He couldn't think of sand so his house was made of wood and metal.

  
  


He couldn't think of sand. He and Pepper eloped. A beach was no place for a wedding when two of their family were gone.

  
  


Morgan played with toys and gadgets instead of a playground or sandpit.

  
  


His suits were improved but never worn. The nanobots felt like sand.

  
  


He now hated Star Wars. An aching place in his chest echoed the ironic thought that he was rather like Anakin.

  
  


He didn't like sand.

  
  


Why would he? After all, its coarse grains scratched and shattered the shards of his memories of two people who he shared no blood with but were family in all the ways that counted.

  
  


Instead of building new heights and views as it did with the dunes of the desert or the ocean floor, the sand in Tony's heart and mind carved away at his hope and love.

  
  


It did not smooth out beauty as it had with canyons and cliffs around the world, no, it broke down into hurt and made his own personal world crumble.

  
  


Crumble to dust.

  
  
  


\---

  
  
  


As much as it had tried, Tony's fractured heart was never fully able to heal. He knew that pieces of it lay scattered in between the piles of ash and destroyed nanobots that had been left behind on Titan.

  
  


Pieces that had also been left in his old lab, in the living room of the Tower, and more scattered with every forgetful moment that he would turn to say something or show something to a Peter who was never there.

  
  


Tony was standing on the lakeshore with Morgan and Pepper, watching the very distant but bright meteor shower as he desperately tried to ignore memories that they and the sand under his feet brought up. That was when his heart broke off into yet another piece.

  
  


The thought had come out of the blue. There had been no trigger, no surge of realisation, nothing truly defining had happened. Not a single thing.

  
  


He was filled with an almost numbing grief when the thought registered to his brain.

  
  


It had been three years since Thanos had snapped. Three years since Peter and May Parker had died.

  
  


Along with grief, it filled Tony with bitterness because  _ the sands of time do not stop for one man's pain. _

  
  


The years of living  _ without _ his son had now surpassed the years that he had lived  _ with _ him, and Tony was cruelly reminded of a quote he had once heard.

  
  


_ "Now I have to remember you for longer than I have known you." _

  
  


Like the sand that so haunted him, Tony's time with Peter had slipped through his fingers. Sprinkling to a stop so much sooner than he could have ever expected.

  
  


His heart ached for a way for that time to be returned, for it's broken pieces to be mended, but it was not meant to be.

  
  


There was no magical hourglass that he could turn over to right its sands.

  
  


The only thing he could do was move on.

  
  


But Tony didn't want to move on. He didn't want time's sand to keep flowing, keep moving, keep changing.

  
  


There was nothing he could do. He was helpless in his grief with no way to truly heal.

  
  


And he never would heal. Not as long as there was sand, not as long as there were reminders, and memories, and  _ pain _ .

  
  


Time and sand would shift and Tony would be forced to shift with it, but he would never forget what the sand had brought him and what it had taken from him.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> (Btw the quote is by c.c aurel)


End file.
